Ultimate Software Group (ULTI)

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading cloud provider of people management solutions, announced today that it has partnered with Yammer, the leading provider of enterprise social networks, to seamlessly connect Yammer to UltiPro HCM. The integration combines the rich data about people housed within UltiPro with the natural, continuous feedback on employees’ work, achievements, progress, and cross-functional collaboration shared on Yammer.

UltiPro serves as the hub for all of an organization’s people information and workforce intelligence — from recruiting through career development, job history, compensation, payroll, and performance. By connecting the HR system of record with Yammer’s real-time collaboration solution, the two companies are working to foster better employee engagement while also capturing organic performance management information for the business.

“Ultimate is focused on designing people management solutions for the way people really work. Static, once-a-year performance appraisals don’t capture the full picture of an individual’s contributions, strengths, achievements, and opportunities for growth,” noted Pat Pickren, VP of product management for Ultimate. “By combining the rich data on all aspects of an employee’s career with the ongoing feedback from the Yammer corporate social community, Ultimate and Yammer can enable companies to better understand how their people work, collaborate, and succeed — and, more importantly, act on that intelligence to strengthen business performance.”

The first phase of UltiPro and Yammer integration will be available in UltiPro’s Spring 2012 release. Key points of integration on the 2012 plan include:

• Recognition from Yammer published within the UltiPro talent profile—Managers and HR staff will see the comprehensive, continuous picture of employee performance in one central place, as UltiPro seamlessly captures praise from Yammer into the performance management record.
• Team collaboration view—Managers will be able to view a filtered stream of their team members’ collaboration from Yammer as part of the UltiPro Talent Gateway, making it easy to review both performance information and real-time activity in one place.
• Single sign-on from UltiPro to Yammer—This feature will provide a seamless, yet secure, login experience.
• Work milestones—This will enable people to tag accomplishments relative to a company, team, or individual goal within Yammer and have these milestones captured in UltiPro’s goal management capability.
• Cross posting and messaging—Jobs posted in UltiPro will automatically post to Yammer, and administrative alerts or actions can be part of an individual’s activity stream.

“Ultimate focuses on capturing comprehensive information about a company’s people in one place — and Yammer focuses on helping those people actively participate, collaborate, and drive company performance, so this partnership was a natural extension for both of our organizations,” said David Sacks, founder and CEO, Yammer. “We’re looking forward to joining forces with Ultimate to help companies and their employees become more effective.”

An Open Approach to Collaboration and Performance

The connection with Yammer is the first step in Ultimate’s approach to open the HCM system of record to collaboration platforms and work management systems in the enterprise. Through standards-based connectors, UltiPro will instantaneously collect and publish people data across social tools, activity streams, and work management platforms. This integration will make it easier for individuals and teams to work in ways that are natural while still capturing information vital for understanding and managing organizational performance.

“Because UltiPro is the master system-of-record for all data on the people in an organization, our solution captures the most comprehensive data on an organization’s talent in one place,” said Adam Rogers, chief technology officer for Ultimate. “The value of capturing that depth and breadth of data lies in UltiPro’s unique ability to allow customers to synthesize their workforce information and make decisions on it for more effective talent management, employee engagement, and talent retention. With the addition of integration to work collaboration tools, UltiPro will provide our customers greater understanding of what makes their talent successful.”

About Yammer, Inc.

Yammer (www.yammer.com) is the leading provider of enterprise social networks, enabling organizations to make transformative changes quickly by empowering employees to collaborate across departments, geographies, content and business applications. The basic version of Yammer is free, and customers can pay to upgrade their network to receive additional administrative and security controls, priority customer service and a dedicated customer success manager. Companies and organizations from across the globe, including more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500, are using Yammer’s award-winning Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution to improve employee productivity and engagement.

About Ultimate

Ultimate is a leading cloud provider of people management solutions. Built on the belief that people are the most important ingredient of any business, Ultimate’s award-winning UltiPro delivers HR, payroll, and talent management solutions that seamlessly connect people with the information and resources they need to work more effectively. Founded in 1990, the company is headquartered in Weston, Florida and has more than 1,400 professionals focused on developing the highest quality solutions and services. In 2012, Ultimate was ranked #25 on FORTUNE’S “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. Ultimate has more than 2,300 customers with employees in 115 countries, including Adobe Systems Incorporated, The Container Store, Culligan International, Major League Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, and Ruth’s Chris Steak House. More information on Ultimate’s products and services for people management can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.

UltiPro is a registered trademark of The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

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